<B>Publife</B><BR>By Sanjoy Roy in The Guardian; 4 stars(out of 5)<P><BR>Protein Dance's new show offers its audiences the best of two worlds. It's a refreshing piece of physical theatre about life in a pub that actually happens in a pub, thus deftly blurring the boundaries between watching and socialising. It even begins with a quiz for the punters, with a bottle of cheap red as the prize. <P>What follows is a patchwork of overlapping episodes acted out in front of, behind and around the audience. Tasha Gilmore bustles in, loud and brassy, laden with shopping bags and yabbering into her mobile.<P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4346513,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR>

For all those who ever wanted to watch a dance performance in a pub - here's your chance:<P>PRESS RELEASE<P><BR><B>PROTEIN DANCE presents their new work Publife</B><P>Protein Dance present Publife, a site-specific, bar based dance<BR>theatre project performed in pubs and bars.<P>Celebrating Britain?s unique national institution, Protein Dance go pub<BR>crawling for their latest take on social anxiety and extreme behaviour. With<BR>guest appearances from local ?extras?, six people are caught up in a nightly<BR>quest for fun and a dose of self-confidence amidst the chaos of Salsa<BR>classes, pub-trivia quizzes and darts.<P>Protein Dance are renowned for working with professional and<BR>non-professional participants in theatrical and non-theatrical spaces,<BR>blending humour, text and music with idiosyncratic movement, drawing upon<BR>the absurdity in everyday life. Joint choreographers and Artistic Directors<BR>Luca Silvestrini and Bettina Strickler launched Protein Dance in 1997 and<BR>were recipients of a Jerwood Choreography Award and a Bonnie Bird Award in<BR>2000. Luca and Bettina are currently Choreographers in Residence of The<BR>Place.<P><BR>Tuesday 25-29 June at 8pm<P>The Place at the Music Room, O'Neills, 66 Euston Road, London NW1<P>Box Office: 020 7387 0031 Tickets £5 -12<P><BR>26 April South Hill Park, Bracknell 01344 484123<P>7 May The Old Vic, Nottingham 0115 941 9419<P>11 May The Corn Exchange, Bury St Edmunds 01284 769505<P>18 & 19 June Nordern Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead 01628 788997<P>21 & 22 June Newcastle Playhouse, Newcastle 0191 230 5151<P>25-29 June The Place at The Music Room, O?Neills 0207 387 0031<P><BR>

Review in the Evening Standard.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If ballet is an image of life perfected, then physical theatre reveals us warts and all. In the bedsit or down the boozer, it reflects all our unlovely ways, our fears and failings and our unmet desires. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/theatre/dance_review.html?in_review_id=562894&in_review_text_id=594088" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

Review in the Observer (please scroll down article).<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>For Protein Dance's Publife, we gathered at an Irish drinking hole instead of at the river of Jordan. Luca Silvestrini and Bettina Strickler have adapted the secular ritual of sinking pints, darts and dignity into a 70-minute entertainment. Hard to tell when the fun begins or ends: the threat of humiliation, for them and us, lurks beneath the good-humoured games and quizzes. Silvestrini is an apparently amiable MC, his Italian accent mocked by stroppy Cockney Tasha Gilmore; but she ends up soaked in beer, the karaoke gets out of hand and Jean Abreu has to pull his pants down while we egg him on. <P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,746489,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

Protein Dance<BR>O’Neill’s Music Room<BR>Tuesday 25/06/02<BR>Publife<P><BR>Protein Dance’s latest offering Publife is a very lively and energetic piece of physical<BR>theatre and since it is being performed in a pub the audience gets to be in the middle of<BR>it all.<P>From the moment Tasha Gilmore bursts into the room, carrying lots of shopping bags<BR>and chatting away on her mobile phone you hardly find time to catch your breath.<BR>The colourful and fast paced kaleidoscope of episodes covers practically every pub activity imaginable like darts, quizzes and a class in Salsa dancing. Esther Weisskopf<BR>as reluctant Karaoke singer cheered on by Tasha especially stood out. We are even<BR>treated to male striptease and Luca Silvestrini’s take on pole dancing is a revelation.<P>The performers are simply bursting with energy and it is amazing to watch how they squeeze every ounce of possibility out of the crowded dancing space available.<BR>All the flirting, shouting and fighting is just like ‘real life’ and on occasion it is almost hard to remember that it is an actual performance and you are not sitting in the pub next door watching other guests.<P>Bettina Strickler and Luca Silvestrini, both Choreographers in Residence at The Place and Protein Dance’s Artistic Directors, have succeded in capturing a unique snapshot of British publife that makes for highly enjoyable and exciting entertainment. <P><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited June 30, 2002).]

The Banquet rugby tackles Social Darwinism and the Origins of Life while exposing a whole range of time-honoured

social rituals that fall somewhere between the cradle and the grave. Ball gowned and tuxedo clad guests morph from personifications of polite sophistication to feasting beasts and then back again, overseen by avant-garde punk musician/icon & actor Richard Strange, The Banquet?s inimitable David Attenborough / Groucho Marx hybrid.

Not for the faint-hearted, The Banquet is no picnic.

Protein Dance has steadily built a reputation for creating unique dance works that draw upon the absurdity in everyday life and blend

humour, text and music with idiosyncratic movement. Protein Dance?s previous works include Publife, a site-specific bar/pub based

dance theatre project celebrating Britain?s national institution, where five people are caught up in a nightly quest for fun and a dose of

self-confidence amidst the chaos of Salsa classes, pub-trivia quizzes and darts: and, inspired by the work of Sigmund Freud,

On the Couch, a maverick journey into the world of psychoanalysis, repressed desires and relaxation tapes.

Performed by a cast of six, The Banquet has original music by David Coulter: Stage Set and Costume Designs by Dick Bird: lighting

Design by Michael Mannion. The Banquet also features Richard Strange an avant-garde punk musician/icon, with 9 albums under

his belt, Cabaret Futura Club visionary and a feature film actor with credits including Neil Jordan?s Mona Lisa, Tim Burton?s Batman

Where the wild things are The creators of The Banquet have staged a dinner party to illustrate man's beastly behaviour By Charlotte Cripps for The Independent

Bettina Strickler and Luca Silvestrini - the award-winning founders of Protein Dance and creators of the acclaimed dance work, Publife - have pulled out all the stops again with The Banquet. Their latest piece peels the veneer from a supposedly civilised dinner party, tracing the metamorphosis of four ballgowned and tuxedo-clad guests from polite sophisticates into feasting beasts - and back again.

"It's like watching party animals switching into straightforward 'animalistic' behaviour in a posh country house," says Dick Bird, the set designer. As human social interaction deteriorates, the guests are thrown meat to eat like dogs, by a singing butler-cum-ringmaster (played by the pre-punk cult figure, Richard Strange).

Protein Dance have made their reputation by putting the quirks and habits of human behaviour under the choreographic microscope. But in their latest production Banquet, which examines the social rituals and feeding habits of the species, it is the dancers' animal impersonations, rather than their studies of men and women, which steal the show. In order to establish the work's Darwinian premis that we're closer to our primitive ancestors than we like to think, Banquet begins with a choreographed fast forward through evolution. The four dancers, with deftly observed and deftly executed body language slither across the stage like ancient pond life.

Protein Dance's The Banquet offers a fantasy menu that has the virtue of being consistently absurd. It, too, considers the human condition, wondering what we've evolved into. Compere Richard Strange sums up the journey as: 'From goo to zoo to you - not worse, not better, just one step further on.'

Protein Dance Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place, London Review by Nadine Meisner for The Independent

After Protein Dance's success with Publife last year, the company is back, with The Banquet, to offer more observations on human mores. The Banquet reminds us of who we are in the animal world. Crude, instinctual tactics sabotage the sophisticated social rituals of the occasion portrayed. The four elegant guests revert to a grunting menagerie, and polite words lurch into barks and snuffles.

The Banquet is entertaining, funny and intelligent, even if it does a good job of reminding us that manners really do maketh the man, and beneath is an animal driven by sex and survival. "From goo to zoo/ from zoo to you," sings Richard Strange.

Protein Dance's “The Banquet” The feast continues 15 January to 12 February 2004

“The Banquet”, Protein Dance's unique take on the Origins of Life, continues its national tour from 15 January 2004. Choreographed and directed by Bettina Strickler and Luca Silvestrini, The Banquet rips the lid off our seeming social sophistication to expose the beast beneath the surface.

Ball-gowned and tuxedo-clad guests morph from personifications of polite society to feasting beasts and back again, overseen by art/punk ledgend Richard Strange, The Banquet's inimitable David Attenborough/Groucho Marx hybrid. Not for the fainthearted, “The Banquet” is no picnic!

Protein Dance has built a reputation for creating unique dance works that draw upon the absurdity in everyday life and blend humour, text and music with idiosyncratic movement. The Company's previous works include “Publife”, a site-specific bar/pub based dance theatre project and “On the Couch” a journey into the world of psychoanalysis, repressed desires and relaxation tapes. Winners of a Jerwood Choreography Award, Luca Silvestrini and Bettina Strickler are choreographers-in-residence at The Place, London.

“The Banquet” has original music by David Coulter, set designs by Dick Bird, costume designs by Silvia Raggi Cosi and lighting by Michael Mannion. It is performed by a cast of five - Strange, Benjamin Dunks, Tasha Gilmore, Luca Silvestrini, Richard Strange and Esther Weisskopf.

Cabaret Futura Club visionary Richard Strange is a writer, musician actor, whose film credits including Neil Jordan's “Mona Lisa”, Tim Burton's “Batman” and Martin Scorsese's “Gangs of New York” to his name.

At table, do you wolf down your food? At parties, do you act the goat, or just, maybe, monkey around a bit. If so, chances are that The Banquet – the latest production from award-winning Protein Dance – will leave you feeling hot under the collar.

GIVEN the food-heavy titles of both company and show, you’d expect to walk away from this performance feeling satiated. Sadly, the reverse is true. The Banquet is more famine than feast, with a potentially diverting storyline under-explored and badly presented.

Stepping back in time to the primordial soup, the dancers squirm across the stage, slowly growing legs and arms before evolving into swinging monkeys. So far, so Darwinian - nothing particularly new or clever there, but interesting nonetheless.

Please pass on my compliments to the host The Banquet - Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. By Ellie Carr for The Sunday Herald

From weekend binge drinkers to holidaymakers in Faliraki, you don’t have to look far for evidence that our animal instincts are closer to the surface than we like to think. The Banquet, by London-based physical theatre outfit Protein Dance, makes this point by homing in on a group of excitable Sloanes holed up for a dinner party in a crumbling mansion by master of ceremonies, former proto-punk/actor, Richard Strange.

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